Love Letters
A.R. Gurney
The Pear Theatre
A.R. Gurney’s 1989-premiering Love Letters has been performed hundreds of times by theatres on-and-off-Broadway, coast-to-coast, and internationally, featuring thousands of couples – often the biggest names in show biz – who generally star in the two-hander show only one night. By design of the playwright, actors do not see a script ahead of time. They arrive on stage; sit at two desks in two settings; and begin to read back and forth the letters, cards, and notes sent by two people over a near-fifty-year relationship. In the epistles, they discuss their hopes and dreams, their quirks and complaints, their victories and disappointments, and a long-lasting love relationship between them that seems to work better on paper than in person.
The Pear Theatre joins the long list of companies producing the ever-popular Love Letters by enlisting much-accomplished, well-known, Bay Area actors who – for eight of the nine performances – are actual couples in long-term relationships. With such talent and with Gurney’s brilliantly funny and emotionally captivating script, The Pear Theatre has a hit on its hands that tempts an audience member to return in order to experience a different couple’s spontaneous interpretations
Please continue to Talkin’Broadway for the rest of my review.
Rating: 5 E
A Theatre Eddys Best Bet Production
Love Letters continues May 3, 4, 10, and 11, 2024 – running in repertory with Lloyd Suh’s The Chinese Letter through May 12 – at The Pear Theatre, 1110 La Avenida, Suite A, Mountain View, CA. Tickets are available at www.thepear.org .
Photo Credits: The Pear Theatre and Michael Rhone/Michael Saenz (a performance-night selfie)
